Online Writing Classes and Workshops

“There is no greater agony than the story untold.” -Maya Angelou

Writing a memoir is an act of believing in yourself and the value of your life for others.

Memoir Magazine University is a safe space dedicated entirely to the development of writers and stories that need to be heard. Here you will find a supportive writing community dedicated to helping you succeed in telling your story.

MMU courses are 100% online, so you will enjoy the freedom and flexibility to access them at anytime day or night, and learn at your own pace.

Feedback and personal attention. Our memoir writing classes and workshops differ in the amount of personalized feedback and attention you receive. Memoir Magazine University Online courses and workshop instructors are working writers, editors, and instructors dedicated to the culture and genre of memoir.

Perhaps the most crucial part of the writing process, our workshops provide a way for writers to learn from one another, by giving and receiving feedback on plot, characterization, and writing style.  There will be lectures and suggested reading, and every week, you will submit writing that will be critiqued by the instructor and the group.

This is a powerfully transformative process showing you how your story affects others and in the process helping you find and accept your own truth.

At Memoir Magazine University you can:

  • Record personal experiences
  • Express thoughts and experiences in personal essays
  • Tell your story or the story of an ancestor or family member
  • Develop and receive valuable feedback on your writing
  • Write a full-length book
  • Heal from the past
  • Achieve something else

Participants of our highly interactive online writing workshops and classes will:

  1. Acquire new skills
  2. Be motivated and be held accountable to complete one or several writing projects, essays, or chapters
  3. Interact and engage with an enthusiastic instructor who can offer valuable feedback on your work.
  4. Get personalized feedback from other writers
  5. Learn the art of giving unbiased feedback

Our Upcoming Classes:

Our Bodies; Our Words: A Day of Writing and Storytelling with Kathy Curto

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

10am-3pm ET

In this all-day online workshop, open to writers of all levels, Kathy Curto guides participants to write, share and think together about the body. These days, when touch may be scarce and ideas about health and vulnerability seem endless, it is a chance to slow down, document, and wonder.

 Find out more.

Text, Power, Telling Workshop with Jackie Regan and Jess Restaino

Monday, 9/12/2022

1:00-3:30pm ET

Limit 8 Students

This 2 1/2 hour online workshop will provide the opportunity for those who have experienced sexual trauma to use writing as a vehicle for deeper exploration and to create a healing text. Viewing the text as a living body, as the place that we hide, participants will be given the opportunity to anonymously work in text with an honest engagement of their experiences, however those experiences manifest for them. In this way, the text frees us from labels–perhaps there is no simple narrative arc, perhaps there are gaps in memory–in the creation of a new genre that challenges specific roles and instead allows us to safely gain power over the telling of our experiences.

 Find out more.

Writing Family Secrets with Deborah J. Cohan

Tuesday, September 20, 2022

6:30-8:30 ET

In this groundbreaking 2-hour online workshop, Deborah J. Cohan draws on her background as a writer, teacher, sociologist, counselor, and group facilitator both for abuse intervention classes and for workshops related to self-care and creativity. Her experience in these different and overlapping arenas will support participants to think about how to free themselves of the constraints that so often hinder writers from tackling and excavating crucial family secrets.

 Find out more.

Writing To Heal with Jerry Waxler

September 15  – October 20th, 2022
Thursdays, 7:30 to 9 PM Eastern

While mysteries are about detectives solving murders, and thrillers are about heroes stopping villains, memoirs are about the enormous potential of the human spirit to find truth in the midst of psychological chaos.

In this course, Jerry Waxler, therapist, author, and memoir expert will guide you through the simple steps of developing a memoir by using the raw material of your own experience. Find out more.

#MeToo Anonymous Writing Workshop for Sexual Assault Survivors

September 19  – October 24th, 2022
6 weeks

Develop difficult subject matter in an intimate workshop of Survivor-Writers offering supportive responses to each other’s truths on the written page and propelling your writing to a whole new level.  Facilitator: Mary McBeth. Find out more.

We also offer:

Essay and Manuscript Critique and 1-1 Private classes of any course of study. Contact us to find out more.

Memoir Magazine
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